


Heaven in a Wild Flower

by Razziecat (EchoThruTheWoods)



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/Razziecat
Summary: Vincent Valentine's birthday, his first after joining Cloud and company on their quest.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Heaven in a Wild Flower

Vincent never had much to say.

He hadn’t exactly been a chatterbox in the old days, always listening, observing, taking mental notes, but keeping his mouth shut most of the time. He wasn’t good at small talk; the more he tried, the more artificial it felt, until his thoughts tangled and his mouth went dry, and Veld would shake his head and carry the conversation wherever it needed to go.

Now Veld was gone and it wasn’t the old days, and he was the hanger-on at the edge of a group of misfits chasing a super-warrior across the planet. The world was fucked up, sparkling conversation just too far out of his reach.

So when they asked him a direct question, one not related in the least to the reason most of them were sitting around a campfire in the middle of nowhere one cold autumn night, it took him a moment to climb up out of the shadows that dogged his every move.

“My what?”

The questioner, scruffy as a terrier and twice as wiry, took his cigarette out of his mouth and said again, “Your birthday, Valentine. When is it?”

Vincent blinked, his brain just now catching up to the conversation that had gone around the fire, from the haunted youth with the oversize sword, to the graceful brunette with the lethal fists, to the green-eyed waif in the deceptively childish braids and pink dress. They all had answered, bored, he supposed, with the usual planning and watching and worrying. Even the wanna-be astronaut before him had joined in, and now waited for his answer.

He supposed they were making an effort to include him. He supposed he should appreciate it. 

It still seemed too personal, until he remembered that time wasn’t real anymore.

His voice, still rusty and thin from years of disuse, came out broken, like a crow’s rough call. “October thirteenth.”

“Well, hell, that’s today,” said the captain. “Ain’t it?” A murmur of agreement came from the group behind him. 

He pulled a small flask out of his jacket, uncapped it, offering. “Happy birthday, Valentine.” 

A gift. For his birthday. Hesitant, Vincent accepted the flask, tilted it to his mouth. Fire ran down his throat, kindled a deep, melting warmth in his stomach. He coughed once, gave the bottle back, nodded, forgetting the words he was supposed to say. 

The pilot took no offense, returning to the fire. Vincent sat silent, watching their faces blur in the light of the dancing flames. A murmur of conversation, the dark-haired brawler getting to her feet. 

She approached, her smile soft, holding something out to him. “Happy birthday, Vincent. It’s not much, but everybody needs something sweet now and then.”   
  
A chocolate bar, saved from their last trip into a town for supplies. It would be churlish to refuse. This time he remembered the words. “Thank you.”   
  
It melted on his tongue, dark velvet, bittersweet, dissolving into memories, stars bursting behind his eyes, in his throat. He swallowed, lost. Thirty years gone. He bit his lip, silent.

A movement caught his eye, the blond youth coming near, stumbling as if his body was awkward and strange to him. Eyes blue as a gas flame glanced at Vincent, down again.   
  
“Hey, um. Happy birthday.” He extended a hand, on his palm a small circle of bronze with a square hole piercing its center. Coin of Wutai, the coiling figure of a fire snake engraved around the hole.    
  
“Heard it was, um, a birthday tradition,” he said, almost apologetic. “In Wutai.”   
  
Like a marionette on broken strings, Vincent nodded, his head jerking. “It was. Is.” 

He plucked it from the boy’s palm, wrapped his fingers around it, the dragon’s curled spine pressing into his skin, friendly, familiar. Vincent closed hs eyes, his stiff lips forming the words again. “Thank you.”

A few moments passed, a breath of musty wind, a few sparks flitting by like fireflies. The immensity of open air around him, the absence of rotting wood and enclosed space, dizzied him. He drew in air, greedy for it, hungry in a way that meat and drink could never satiate, tasting green earth and salt rain, lichen and limestone. 

A shudder racked him. Loss, resignation. One last purpose, then exile. Not death; that, too, was beyond his grasp. 

“Vincent.” 

He looked up. She in the pink dress and the little red jacket, small and fierce and bright as the sun after a storm, she knelt before him, looking at him. Into him.   
  
She didn’t offer the obligatory wish, just took his cold hand in hers that was so much stronger than it appeared, wrapped his long fingers around something small, round, hard. He looked down.  
  
The words came to him out of the past. “A lily bulb.”   
  
She nodded, smiled. “For when you find someplace you want to stay. You’ll know it when you find it. I believe that.”   
  
He looked again at the small thing in his hand, its brown, firm shell like vellum against his palm, flecked with dark bits of soil. Wrapped up tight against the world, hiding a stubborn spark of life deep inside, waiting for its moment to reach for the sun and the rain.  _ Dormant _ , his memory supplied. Sleeping. Waiting. 

He glanced at the giver, his mouth shaping what might have been a smile.

“Thank you, Miss Gainsborough.”

She smiled back, returned to the group around the fire. 

Vincent tucked the bulb into a secret pocket; after a moment, he rose, followed. 

They made room for him, a place in their circle of warmth.

  
  



End file.
